Rider on Fire & When You Call My Name

She flipped up the visor on the helmet so that she could more easily be heard. “I’ll manage,” she said.

“Still, if you want to lay back a little, I thought I’d tell you where we’re going so that you don’t miss a turn.”

Sonora thought about it and decided that a serial killer probably wouldn’t give her a chance to get away like this. His offer went a long way toward easing her already suspicious mind.

“Yeah, okay, I see your point,” she said.

“Good,” Adam said, then pointed to the left. “Four miles down this way, you’ll come to another fork in the road. Take the right fork, which goes up the mountain, and follow it. Franklin’s home is at the end of the road. You’ll see a couple of signs along the way that say Blue Cat Sculptures.”

Sonora frowned. “Really? Does he sell arts and crafts from his home or something?”

“No.” Then he grinned. “I think there are a few more surprises in store for you. Your father is world renowned for his carvings.”

“The bird,” Sonora muttered.

Adam frowned. “I’m sorry, what did you say?” he asked.

“Oh, nothing,” she said. “Let’s go. I need to get this over with. I don’t want to have to find my way off this mountain in the dark.”

Adam’s frown deepened. “There is no need for that to happen,” he said. “Your father will welcome you.”

“How could he when he didn’t know I existed?”

Adam eyed the woman, accepting her defensiveness as understandable, yet wondering how much of the spiritual world of the Kiowa she would be able to accept.

“It is your father’s story to tell,” Adam said. “So, are you ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” she muttered, and waited for him to drive away. As soon as he’d gone about a half mile down the road, she revved up the engine and followed.

* * *

Franklin was sitting on the porch when he heard the sound of a car coming up the road. It wasn’t out of the ordinary for people to come unannounced, but he wasn’t in the mood to cater to strangers. Still, his good manners bade him to deal with it, just as he was dealing with the leukemia ravaging his body.

When the truck appeared at the curve in the road, he breathed a sign of relief. It was Adam. He was always welcome.

Franklin stood, then lifted his arm in a greeting as Adam pulled up to the yard and stopped. He was partway off the steps when he realized that someone had been following Adam’s truck.

Stifling a frown, he took a deep breath and put on his game face. When he saw that it was a rider on a motorcycle, he paused politely.

“Adam, it’s good to see you,” Franklin said, and then pointed down the road with his chin. “He with you?”

Adam stifled a smile, and then nodded.

Franklin sighed. “This has not been a good day.”

Adam put a hand on his old friend’s arm. “I’m sorry to hear that, old friend, but I have good news. That’s about to change.”

Franklin flinched. The eagle had warned him a change was coming. Was it already here?

The rider pulled up beside Adam’s truck and then parked. It was when he started to dismount that Franklin realized the he was a she. Even in black leather, the body was definitely feminine.

He glanced at Adam, but Adam only smiled at him, then shrugged as if to say wait and see. Franklin sighed. These days, he was not so good at waiting for anything.

The rider leaned slightly forward as she took off the helmet, and as she lifted her head, a long, black sweep of hair fanned out, then fell loosely down the back of her neck. Even though she had yet to face him, Franklin felt an odd sense of familiarity.

“Adam?”

“Just wait,” Adam said.

In that moment, Sonora Jordan turned, and for the second time today, found herself face-to-face with the other man from her dreams.

“This is too weird,” she muttered, and refused to let herself be overwhelmed by the fact that this man claimed he was her father.

Franklin was shaking. He couldn’t quit staring at her face.

“Who are you?” he asked.

Sonora looked at Adam, then frowned. “I thought you said he knew I was coming.”

Adam decided it was time for him to intervene. “Franklin, the Old Ones have delivered what you asked for. This is Sonora Jordan. She’s an agent with the DEA.”

Sonora frowned. “What Old Ones? What are you talking about?” She backed up and laid her hand on the storage compartment behind the seat of the Harley. It made her feel safer to be close to the gun. “Is this some trick Garcia has pulled to get me alone, because I warn you, if it is, I won’t—”

“No. No,” Franklin whispered. “It’s no trick. It’s a miracle. I asked Adam to find my child. And you have come.”

Sonora looked at Adam. “I don’t get it. You didn’t find me. I found you.”

“Actually, it was neither,” Adam said. “The Old Ones found you. They are the ones who have guided your path. They are the ones who have brought you to this place.”

“What are you talking about? Who are these Old Ones you keep talking about?”

Franklin waved her question away as he took her by the hand.

“Forgive me, but I just had to touch you. You are so beautiful. My heart is full of joy.”

“Look,” Sonora said. “I appreciate your kindness, but how can you be certain that—”

“Come into my house. I’ll prove it to you,” Franklin said, and then turned and strode to the porch and up the steps without waiting to see if she was behind him.

Sonora glared at Adam. “I’m not falling for all this ghost and spirit crap.”

“Suit yourself,” he said. “But consider this…how else did you come to be in this place?”

She flashed on the hallucinations and dreams she’d been having and glared even harder.

“My boss told me to get lost for a while. That’s how. I’ve got one man already on my back trying to kill me. So if you’re in mind of doing anything similar, you need to get in line.”

Adam froze. His voice deepened as his eyes went cold. “You are in danger?”

“Oh, Lord… I don’t know…. Yes, probably. At least enough that my boss told me to leave Phoenix.”

“Come, come,” Franklin called from the doorway. “You must see to believe.”

Sonora gave Adam one last warning glance. “Just don’t mess with me, okay?”

Adam didn’t answer.

Sonora exhaled angrily, took her gun out of the compartment and put it in the back waistband of her pants, beneath her leather vest, then stomped into the house.

“So what do you have to show me?” Sonora said.

Franklin handed her a photo that he’d taken from the mantel over the fireplace.

Sonora eyed it casually, then stifled a gasp.

“Who is she?” she asked, pointing at the woman in the photo.

“My mother, and he is my father. It was taken on their wedding day.”

“Good Lord,” Sonora whispered, then carried it to a table in the hall and the mirror that hung above it.

She kept looking from the photo to her face and then back again until Adam took it from her hands and held it up beside her. Were it not for old-fashioned hair and clothing, and the man in the picture, she would have sworn the picture was of her.

“I look like her,” Sonora said, and then bit her lip to keep from weeping. In all of her twenty-nine years, she’d never had the luxury of saying that before.

Franklin walked up behind her. Adam stepped back. Now Sonora was seeing herself, and Franklin Blue Cat, and seeing the similarities in their features. Her emotions were out of control. They went from jubilation, knowing she’d found a family, to hurt and anger that he’d never come looking for her. She wanted to cry, and settled for anger.

“Why?” she muttered.

“Why what?” Franklin asked.

“Why am I just learning you existed?”

Franklin took her by the hand. “Please, may we sit down? I’m not feeling very well.”

“What’s wrong?” she asked as he led her to a sofa.

Franklin shrugged. “I have leukemia and the medicines have quit working. I am dying.”

Sonora reeled from the news. She’d known he wasn’t well, and had even had the thought that he was dying, but to hear her suspicions were actually true made her sick to her stomach. This wasn’t fair. She’d spent her entire life alone. Why would she be reunited with her only living family only to have him snatched away? How cruel was this?

“I’m so sorry,” she mumbled, and bit her lip to keep from wailing.

Franklin nodded. “Such is life,” he said, then brushed the topic aside. “Did your mother ever mention my name?”

Sonora smiled bitterly. “My mother, as you put it, dumped me on the doorstep of a Texas orphanage when I was less than a day old. I was named by a priest and a nun and dumped in a baby bed with two other babies. My earliest memory is of sitting in the corner of the bed and bawling because one of the bigger kids had taken my bottle and drank my milk.”

Franklin reeled as if he’d been slapped. “You’re not serious?”

She laughed to keep from crying. “Oh, but I am. She didn’t want me and that’s okay. I can take care of myself.”

Franklin shook his head as tears unashamedly ran down his face. When she would have moved away, he took her hands, then held them fast against his chest.

“No. No. That is never okay. I am sorrier than I can tell you, but it’s not okay. I didn’t know until a few weeks ago that you might even exist. That’s when I asked Adam for help.”

Sonora shook her head. “That’s what I still don’t get. How did you come to believe you had a child? Who told you?”

“I had a dream,” he said. “I have it often. It’s always of your mother, whom I loved more than life. It’s a repeat of our last day together, and how sad I am that she’s moving away, even though I begged her to stay. Only this time the dream was different and it made me believe that your mother’s spirit was trying to tell me to search for you.”

“You’re serious.”

“Very.”

Sonora pointed to Adam. “So, where does he come in?”

“He’s the healer for our tribe. I am full-blood Kiowa. I have no brothers or sisters, and after your mother left, I never had another woman. I am the last of my people, or at least I was, until Adam sent for you.”

“Both of you keep saying that, but I don’t understand. How did he send for me when he didn’t even know if I existed?”

“I made medicine,” Adam said. “I told the Old Ones what Franklin wanted. They are the ones who looked for you. They are the ones who found you. They are the ones who have given you your dreams that led you to us.”

“Oh…oh, whatever,” Sonora muttered. “I can’t deal with all that hocus-pocus right now.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Franklin said. “All that matters is that you are here.”

Outside, there was a quick flash of lightning.

“It is going to rain. Will you stay?” Franklin asked. “I have many rooms in this house and yet I live in it all alone. I would welcome your company for as long as you can be here.”

She thought about the danger her presence might cause, and then decided there was no way on earth that Miguel Garcia would ever find her here. Besides, she wasn’t just curious, she ached to know this man who was claiming her. She wanted to know everything there was to know about the people whose blood ran through her veins.

“Yes, I’ll stay, and thank you,” she said. “I’ll just go get my bag off the Harley.”

“I’ll get it,” Adam said, “but then I must be going. I have animals to feed before dark.”

He hurried outside, untied the bag from the back of the Harley and carried it into the house where Franklin was waiting.

“How can I ever thank you?” Franklin said, and then threw his arms around Adam and hugged him fiercely.

“It’s the Old Ones you must thank,” Adam said, then added, “Call if you need me.”

Sonora was standing behind an easy chair, watching the two men part company. She felt like the outsider she really was, and had a sudden urge to jump on her bike and leave before she became too involved to let go. Then Adam turned his attention to her.

“Franklin has my number. Call me if you need me.”

She made no comment, unwilling to admit that she didn’t want him to leave.

Adam refrained from looking at her again. It was difficult enough not to let what he was thinking show through. Somehow he didn’t think Franklin would thank him for lusting after his newfound daughter.

“Come tomorrow,” Franklin said. “I’ll make breakfast.”

Adam arched an eyebrow. Franklin’s fry bread was famous on the mountain.

“Fry bread, too?”

Franklin smiled. “Sure.”

“What’s fry bread?” Sonora asked.

Both men looked at her and then shook their heads.

“It won’t look good if word gets out that Franklin Blue Cat’s daughter has never had fry bread,” Adam said.

Franklin smiled. “You are right,” he said. “So…my first duty as a father will be to introduce her to it.”

Sonora caught herself smiling back. “Am I being the butt of a big joke?”

“Oh, no,” they said in unison. Then Adam added. “Your father often makes fry bread at the stomp dances.”

“Stomp dances?”

They looked at her and then smiled again.

“You have a lot to learn about your people,” Franklin said, then his smile went sideways. “I will teach you what I can with the time I have left.”

Sonora nodded, then looked away. “Maybe you could tell me where you want me to sleep. I would like to wash off some of the dust before we talk any more.”

“I’ll be going now,” Adam said. “See you for breakfast.”

Sonora picked up her bag as Franklin led the way down a hall.

“These rooms are cool and catch plenty of breeze. However, there is an air-conditioning unit if you wish to be cooler. The medicine I take makes me cold, so I don’t often use the main one in the house anymore.”

“This is beautiful,” Sonora said, overwhelmed by the subdued elegance. There were royal-blue sheers at the windows, as well as vertical blinds. A matching blue-and-gold tapestry covered a king-size bed and there was a large Navajo rug on the floor in front of it. But it was the carving of a small kitten that caught her eye. It was lying on its back with its feet up in the air, batting at a dragonfly that had landed on its nose.

She moved toward it, touched it lightly, then picked it up. “I can’t believe this is wood. It looks real.”

Franklin smiled. It was praise of the highest kind. “Thank you. It would honor me if you would accept it as a gift.”

Sonora’s eyes widened. “Oh. I didn’t mean to suggest… I couldn’t possibly…”

Franklin put a hand on her shoulder. “Please. You’re my daughter. Of course you must have this.”

Sonora ran a thumb along one of the paws, tracing each tiny cut that gave the appearance of fine hair.

“This is magnificent,” she whispered.

“I call the piece Friends,” Franklin said.

“It’s perfect,” Sonora said, and then held it close as she looked up into his face—a face so like her own. “Today has been overwhelming,” she said. “There is so much I don’t understand—so much I don’t know how to explain. I’ve never had family of my own, so if I do something wrong, I beg your forgiveness ahead of time.”

“You can do no wrong,” Franklin said. “You’re the one who’s been wronged. I don’t understand how this happened, but if I’d known about you, I would have moved heaven and earth to bring you home.”

Threatened by overwhelming emotions, Sonora shuddered. “If this is a dream, I don’t want to wake up.”

Franklin shook his head. “It is no dream. Now, I have one request to ask of you.”

“If I can. What do you need?”

“To hold my daughter.”

Sonora hesitated long enough to put down the sculpture, then turned and walked into his arms.

Franklin stifled a sob as she laid her cheek against his chest. For the first time since he’d received the news of his death sentence, he was angry all over again. This wasn’t fair. Why should they be reunited like this only to know it would soon come to an end?

* * *

It was almost dark by the time Adam got home. He finished his chores in the dark and then hurried inside, reaching shelter only moments before the heavens turned loose of the rain.

Wind blew. Thunder rumbled. Lightning flashed.

He ate a lonely meal and thought of the breakfast tomorrow, knowing that, for a short time, he would be with Sonora again.

He didn’t know what was going to happen between them, but he didn’t want the relationship to end before they had a chance to know one another.

He thought of Franklin, wondering how he was going to take finding a daughter and losing his life.

Rain blew against the kitchen window as he washed the dishes from his evening meal. Lightning flashed, momentarily revealing the wildly thrashing trees and limbs and the flow of rainfall funneling through the yard to the creek below his house.

Then another, more sinister thought reared its head.

Sonora had said she was in danger.

He feared she was understating the issue. The soldier in him wanted to take her to a place of safety and guard her against the world. But the healer in him knew there was another way.

His eyes narrowed as he dried his hands and moved from the kitchen to the medicine room.

He paused in the doorway, thinking of a stranger on Sonora’s trail, and then moved with purpose to the shelves. Without hesitation, he chose the items he needed, then carried them outside onto the porch. Sheltered from the rain, he lit a swatch of dried sweetgrass, then purified the air with the smoke.

He fell into the old language as easily as he breathed, turned to the north and began to chant, telling the Old Ones of the danger to one of their own, beseeching them to protect her when he could not. Then he repeated the request to the east, then the south and finally the west.

A wild crack of lightning hit the ground only yards away from his house. Adam staggered backward from the force of the strike. The scent of sulfur was heavy in the air. As he stood, the wind suddenly changed and blew rain up under the eaves of the porch and into Adam’s face.

He took it as a sign that they’d heard.

It was done.

Chapter 7

Sonora spent the rest of the evening in a daze. It was difficult to wrap her mind around the fact that she not only had a father, but that she was actually in his house. While the premise was far-fetched and almost too good to be true, whatever doubts she might have had about being his daughter ended the moment she’d seen her grandmother’s picture.

Thinking about how she got here could make her crazy if she dwelled on it, so she didn’t. For a woman who’d spent all of her adult life dealing in truth and facts, accepting the notion of being guided by what amounted to ghosts seemed ridiculous. Still, however it had happened, she was grateful to be here.

And Franklin, who was normally shy and reticent toward strangers, was struggling to give her space. The last thing he wanted was to scare her off, but he felt a constant need to be with her. With his life span already limited, he was resentful that their time together was destined to be short.

So, while they wrestled to find comfort with each other, the thunderstorm that threatened earlier had come full force. Sonora and Franklin ate their evening meal with an accompaniment of thunder and lightning, then washed dishes with rain splattering against the windows. After that, Franklin had taken her on a tour of the house, only to have it interrupted by a power failure. Sonora had embarrassed herself by panicking when the lights had gone out. By the time Franklin found flashlights and lit a few candles, the power was on.

Now they sat in front of a television without paying any attention to the programming, trying to find points of connection between their separate lives.

Sonora was fascinated with his artistic skills and was going through a photo album that represented a complete set of his work once he’d turned a hobby into a profession. She was in awe of where he’d been, and the heads of states he’d met in faraway countries.

Franklin, on the other hand, was trying to hide his dismay at the profession his only child had chosen.

“So, when did you begin working with the DEA?” he asked.

Sonora turned a page in the album, then looked up.

“It seems like forever, but I guess it’s been about seven or eight years now. I had just turned twenty-one. I’m twenty-nine now. I’ll be thirty in September.”

Franklin’s nostrils flared. It was the only indication he gave of realizing there was another slot to be filled.

“Your birthday,” he said softly.

Sonora nodded, then stopped.

“Oh. Yes. Another gap in our knowledge of each other, which I can quickly fix. My birthday is September 12. I’m five feet ten inches tall in my bare feet. I wear a size ten in clothes, and I love chocolate.”

He tried to smile and hugged her, thankful that she was trying to make light of the vast gap between them, because the truth of it broke his heart.

“You are tall, like me,” he said. “Your mother, Leila, was a small woman, but she had a big laugh.” His smile faded. “It was the first thing I loved about her.” Then he shook his head. “But that’s for another time. I was born on June 4 in a storm cellar while a tornado blew away the house that was here. This is the one they built to replace it, so it is the only home I’ve ever known.”

Sonora nodded as she listened to him talk, but she wasn’t listening as intently as she should have been. Instead, she was marking the way his left eyebrow arched as he told something funny, noticing his slim hands and long fingers, hands of an artist. His skin was darker than hers, but not by much, and she suspected part of the washed-out color of his skin was due to his illness. She thought of seeing him unconscious on the floor and not knowing the connection between them, and how blessed she was to be sitting here now.

Then she thought of Adam coming to his rescue.

“Tell me about Adam Two Eagles,” she said.

Franklin had sensed what seemed to be interest between the two and could only hope something came of it.

“His father was my best friend,” he said. “His mother was a distant cousin on my mother’s side.”

“We’re related?” she asked, unaware that she was frowning.

This time, Franklin allowed himself a grin. “Only in the most distant sense of the word. Probably what would amount to a sixth or seventh cousin.”

“Oh. Well. That hardly counts, does it?”

Franklin’s grin spread. “Definitely does not count.”

Sonora realized he was having fun at her expense and made a face at him. “It’s not what you think. I was asking only because I would want to know of any relatives.”

Franklin sighed, and then took her hand in his. “I’m afraid, when it comes to close family, we’re it.” Then Franklin shifted gears to Sonora’s life. “Have you ever been married?”

“No.” She thought of Buddy and smiled. “Not even close, although I’ve had a couple of relationships and gotten a good friend from one of them.”

“Friends are good,” Franklin said.

Sonora thought of the dream she’d had of Adam, of the whisper of his breath on the back of her neck and the challenge he’d given her right before she’d awakened.

“Come to me,” he’d said.

And she would have done it—willingly. However, faced with the real man and not one out of some dream, she was far more discerning. As intriguing as he was—as handsome and compelling as he was—he was still a stranger.

Unaware of the places her mind had taken her, Franklin had shifted a few mental gears of his own.

“In the morning, I’ll show you the boundaries of our land,” Franklin said.

Sonora was so taken aback by the fact that he’d referred to the property as “ours” that she could hardly speak. Still, she felt a need to slow him down from committing to things he might later come to regret.

“Franklin…wait. Please. You don’t need to do this,” she said.